


Downpour

by notsafeforowls



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ava and Nate as siblings, Character Death, F/F, Gen, The Rain (novel) AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-10-02
Packaged: 2020-10-13 23:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20591201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notsafeforowls/pseuds/notsafeforowls
Summary: One minute, everyone's baking in a record breaking heatwave.The next, it begins to rain, and all of the television broadcasts are warning people to avoid three things: coming into contact with contaminated water, coming into contact with the infected, and leaving their homes unless absolutely necessary.But what is necessary is relative, as Nate and Ava are stranded on opposite sides of the country, and neither one has any intention of staying put.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a quick note before this starts: characters will die, but I do promise that none of the characters tagged will die during the story, so you don't need to worry about that. Other characters will be added as they enter the story.

“Yes, Mom, I promise that I’ll make it the next time. I love you, too.”

Sara glances up from collecting her mail to see the woman from two doors down just putting her phone away as she drags a small suitcase through the doors into the apartment building. Alice? No, something shorter. Ana? Ava. That’s it. She’d been wearing a smart suit the day they’d met and had mentioned something about being a lawyer for one of the big firms. Sara wishes that she could remember more, but she’s pretty sure she was too busy checking Ava out to really register anything else she said.

“Let me guess,” Sara says, gesturing towards the suitcase with one of the letters. “Your flight was one of the ones cancelled because of ‘technical difficulties.’” She does the quotation marks with her fingers, just for emphasis in case Ava doesn’t get it.

Meaning that the heat’s caused something to malfunction, and no one’s really brave enough to want to fly without being able to be sure that it won’t break again. Sara doesn’t know much about engineering or tech in general – that’s more Jax’s expertise – but she’s pretty sure that flights are supposed to be able to handle hotter conditions than this.

Then again, her AC’s been broken for three days, after apparently burning itself out in the middle of the night. Or that could have been her plugging it into an adaptor with too many other things. Laurel says it was probably that, but Laurel’s a lawyer, what does _she_ know about electrical appliances? Nothing, that’s what.

Ava shakes her head. “I wish. I got caught in traffic and missed my first flight, then all the others ones after it were cancelled. Did the cancellations make the news?”

“Oh, I have no idea. My friend Behrad called me earlier and said he’d just arrived in Seattle when every flight leaving from the airport was cancelled.” He’d mentioned that he’d never have heard the end of it from his sister if he’d missed the last flight out. “Hey, uh, do you have any plans for tonight?”

And maybe she remembers overhearing Ava saying to Mona that she had emptied all the food from the cupboards because she was going to spend almost a month visiting her family in Washington. And _maybe _Sara’s hoping that this is the opportunity to finally get to know Ava beyond “can you please fix your address so that I don’t get your mail?” and “turn your music down before I call the landlord, and I _will_ call the landlord.”

Ava frowns. “I was going to order takeout.”

“I know the best Chinese takeout place in the city.” Fifth best. Possibly the third best if Sara doesn’t count the fusion restaurants that also deliver. But it’s not as if Ava, who’s only lived in Star City for a few months, knows that. “I’ll even open the good bottle of wine that one of my friends gave me, unless you have anything better.”

Ray has expensive taste and the bottle has been sitting around since Sara moved into her apartment. He’d called it a reward for getting a promotion.

For the first time, Sara sees the hint of a smile on Ava’s face. It’s a nice smile, too, the kind that completely transforms her face.

“My brother gave me a bottle of strawberry gin for my birthday that I haven’t found a reason to open yet.”

***

If there’s one thing that Nate really hates about the summer, it’s the humidity. Well, the heat is a big part of it, but the humidity has to be the worst. It makes the air feel thick and sticky, has him sweating minutes after getting out of the shower, and makes his hair curl no matter how much product he uses on it.

From his place stretched out on the couch, one arm bent awkwardly to keep the needle from being pulled out, Nate can see the heat haze hanging over the garden. He’s not quite close enough to hear the sounds of his parents’ barbecue, but he can see the smoke rising from the group. Probably Hank trying to grill a veggie burger and almost setting it on fire again. Or one of the kids having a go.

He glances at the clock. Sure, he should have joined the ‘celebrations’ – some distant Heywood cousin that Nate thinks he’s spoken to about twice, who’s done something impressive involving either the military or some kind of sport, whatever, it doesn’t matter – an hour ago, but it’s not as if he can just skip a regular infusion. And Nate hates doing them when people are around. They almost always find reasons to come in and start a conversation. It’s bad enough when people treat him like he should be wrapped in cotton wool. It’s worse when they show up to gawp at him.

Which is why he’s spent most of the day hiding out in what some people would call a shed (although Nate isn’t sure how many sheds have air conditioning), and where Nate has fond memories of hiding as a kid, trying to avoid another infusion. His mom’s already asked him twice if she’s going to have to bribe him with marshmallows to go to the barbecue. Hank hasn’t said very much, which is something Nate is grateful for. The last thing he wants is for them to get into an argument when his mom obviously wants everyone to get along for one day.

He can manage that, Nate decides, closing his eyes and listening to the distant murmur of his family. He’s done more difficult things.

Here in the shed, Nate can close his eyes, inhale the heavy scent of pollen from all the plants lining the walls (all meticulously cared for by his mother; Nate remembers the way that she’d chase him and Ava out if she found them hiding among them, only half-joking about making them water and prune them for a month if they ‘hurt’ any of them) and pretend that he isn’t going to suffer his family soon.

***

It’s hot, too hot. Mick can just about make out what some of the others in solitary are saying (or screaming in one case) but it’s too hot for him to care. There’s no air circulating in the cell and it’s almost suffocating. He’s managed to block the little sink in the corner and trap some water in case he gets hot enough to splash a few handfuls over his face.

From the sound of it, the warden who’s supposed to be making sure that Mick doesn’t do things like that is watching a TV show. Or the news. It sounds a bit like the breaking news shit.

There’s just enough of the sky visible that Mick can see the clouds gathering in the sky. Not that it means anything; everybody from the wardens to the other prisoners have been saying that it’s going to rain for weeks now, but nothing ever happens. It just gets hotter and hotter.

But, hey, maybe it’s going to rain before Mick gets out of solitary. It’s easier, he thinks, to kill someone when you can get to them in the yard. And he owes McKinnon for getting him thrown in solitary. Bastard.

***

“It looks fine!” Behrad rolls his eyes and slouches in his chair, watching Zari check her reflection for the seventh time in as many minutes.

All he wants is to go outside and enjoy the food with everyone else. Their dad’s serving Behrad’s favourite chicken recipes beside the pool, and he’s stuck inside watching his sister fix her makeup. And she hasn’t even started recording the footage for her next video yet. This is going to take all day. Everyone else is going to have eaten all the good food, and they’re going to be left with the stuff that not even their parents (being polite) will touch.

“Art takes time,” Zari sniffs, examining her nails and frowning. “Do you think anyone will notice if I don’t repaint my nails? My pinkie’s chipped.”

Behrad groans dramatically. It’s going to be a long afternoon. “_Fine_, repaint it.”

Zari beams at him as she opens the drawers and begins picking out a variety of nail polish. “I was thinking about doing something nice – do you want to help me with the nail vinyls? You’ve always been good at them. Oh! Or a sunset gradient, because of the heatwave.”

Maybe if he begs, their parents will bring some food up and he won’t starve to death watching Zari waiting for her nails to dry.

***

“Nathaniel. Nathaniel! Wake up!”

“Mmph?” Nate opens his eyes. Hank’s standing over him, his eyes wild, his cell clutched in one hand, a golf umbrella in the other. “What the hell, Hank?”

“Is your infusion finished?”

Nate checks the drip. There’s nothing left in the bag. “Yeah.” It probably finished a while ago, maybe even not long after Nate fell asleep. He carefully removes the needle and puts everything in their own bags for safe disposal, and puts the needle in a little plastic case so that there’s no risk of anyone being stabbed with it. Hank hovers the entire time, casting nervous glances out of the window.

“We need to go up to the house. Now.”

Nate forces himself up, making a face as he feels his t-shirt peel away from his back. Gross. He’s going to need to change before he suffers through the rest of the day with the family, but Nate doesn’t even have a chance to mention that to Hank before Hank’s ushering him out the door.

Something’s wrong. There’s no sign of anyone at the barbecue. In fact, there’s no sign of anyone at all. The barbecue is completely covered, the chairs are all empty and scattered across the paved area. Even if the meal’s over by now, there should still be people hanging around. His mom’s side of the family never gives up a chance to stand around and talk, even if it means driving home at three in the morning.

“Hank, what’s going on?” _Something_ has to be going on. This definitely isn’t normal.

“I’ll explain in the house. Come on.” Hank makes sure they’re both under the umbrella before they start walking, even though it isn’t even raining.

What the fuck?

Hank glances up at the sky as they walk across the lawn, as if he’s waiting for something awful to happen. Or as if he knows that something awful is already happening. Nate doesn’t usually listen to Hank – he’s made a point of doing the exact opposite of what Hank says, ever since he turned thirteen – but he follows him all the same.

They get inside just as Nate hears the rain start. Hank flinches.

Nate laughs nervously because, really, what the _fuck_?

Inside the house is as strange as the garden. His mom’s sitting on the sofa, frowning at the television, her phone in her hand.

“I can’t get through to Ava,” she says to no one in particular. “She phoned earlier to say that her flight was cancelled and that she was sorry that she couldn’t make it, but whenever I enter any of her numbers, nothing happens.”

“Let me try.”

Nate enters Ava’s landline first. He expects it to ring out, but as soon as he presses the last number, there’s no ringing, there’s just silence. From the expression on his mom’s face, that’s exactly what she got as well. Nate tries Ava’s cell. The same thing happens. He’s halfway through dialling her work number – maybe she went back to the office, maybe there’s just some kind of dead spot over her apartment building right now – when the gardening programme on the television switches to breaking news.

***

Ava’s a little drunk. More than a little drunk. Drunk enough that she’s thinking about how nice Sara Lance’s big blue eyes are. Much nicer than Sara’s taste in music, which is way too much like Ava’s brother’s for her to be able to listen to it without feeling like an angry twelve-year-old again, banging on the wall and screaming at Nate to _turn that down!_ No, this makes her think of being twelve and running down the big hill with Nate, knowing that their parents would go spare if they ever found out that they’d been anywhere near the hill, with its untamed trees and abandoned cars and appliances, all those sharp edges.

“We’re halfway down the hill when I realise that I didn’t actually finish the cart. And the part that I didn’t finish was the brake. So as soon as I realise, I _grab on_,” Sara almost knocks over her glass and two takeout containers as she throws her arms out to pretend that she’s grabbing on to the imaginary sides of the cart, “and Laurel doesn’t even need to see my face to see what I’ve done. She starts _screaming_ at me about how I’m irresponsible and how if she doesn’t die in a cart crash, she’s going to murder me. My parents got the whole thing on video, and Laurel still tells the story about how my first attempt at building a cart ended with her losing a tooth.”

Ava laughs, throwing herself back against the arm of the couch. “I can beat that. When we were kids, a bully punched my brother for standing up to him. He broke Nate’s nose in two places. Now, Nate’s four years older than me, but as soon as I found out, I went over to Shane’s house and hit him in the face with a basketball, hit him so hard that I broke his nose in _three_ places.”

She’s about to tell Sara that she never even got in trouble (because of course Shane hadn’t wanted anyone to know that he’d been beaten up by a ten-year-old girl) when Sara leans across the takeout containers and plates and jumble of cutlery and kisses her.

***

“Those affected will experience pain and bleeding at the site of the contact.”

It doesn’t make sense. Well. It _does_ make sense, and that might be the worst thing. Some sort of bacterial contamination, possibly from a meteor, or maybe from a recent laboratory explosion, no one seems to be sure, but whatever it is, it’s up there. And it’s coming down with the rain.

“It is recommended that no one leaves their homes,” the reporter says, and there’s a second where it looks as if the picture has cut out before it switches to another reporter, saying much the same thing from a different studio. This one’s talking about how many people were caught outside because of barbecues and summer parties. Lunch breaks. Finishing work early because of the good weather.

Nate clutches the phone so hard that he hears the plastic of the handset creaking under the strain. The rain taps against the windows, and he wants to run. Where? He’s not sure. Somewhere that’s nowhere near the rain and nowhere near anywhere there could be rain. The middle of a desert, or an underground bunker with walls so thick that water can never get through.

“The advice we have received is that the best course of action is to give those affected by the contamination aspirin to treat the pain.”

Someone bangs on the door, and Nate takes a step towards it on instinct, freezing when Hank throws out his arm to stop him.

“Nathaniel, _think_.”

It’s pouring down outside. The shadowy figure looks like they’re holding an umbrella.

“Henry, Dot, I need your help!” Patty, her voice choked and desperate. “It’s Tyson, he opened his window when we were driving home. Please, please let us in.”

There’s something else wrong as well. A wet gurgling noise under Patty’s words. Nate can hear Chris crying, but there’s no sound from Tyson. Tyson’s never quiet. Never. Neither of the kids are.

“Don’t,” Hank says, but he doesn’t need to because Nate takes a few steps backwards instead.

The porch light is out, so he can’t see clearly, but Patty’s hands are leaving something on the windows in the door. And Nate doesn’t need to see anything more to recognise the blood on the glass.

***

Someone’s yelling. For a few minutes, Mick doesn’t even bother to try to work out what they’re saying. And then he hears the doors opening, people screaming inside and outside the prison walls.

Mick lifts his head a few inches until he can hear properly.

It sounds like a riot for a few more seconds, until he makes out the footsteps pounding on the floors, the people banging on walls, the screams that are completely different to the ones that Mick’s used to hearing during riots.

“It’s the water!” someone screams, their voice choked, as if their mouth is half full of honey. “It’s in the water.”

It takes a long time for the screaming to stop.

***

“Do you want anything, Nate?” his mom asks as she pours the boiling water into mugs and adds more coffee to hers than Nate thinks she’s ever drank in her life, not even that time he’d fallen down the stairs and they’d spent an entire weekend in the hospital, making sure that nothing important was going to bleed.

She’s actually had to refill the kettle from the tap, which she only usually has to do in the mornings so that she and Hank can have their morning coffees.

Nate holds up his beer – his third bottle in the last half hour – and shakes his head. He’s not much of a drinker; he usually only drinks on his birthday and at New Year. This isn’t quite a special occasion, but he thinks that his cousin and her sons are dying right outside the house, and he can’t do anything – because Tyson was injured, Patty would have tried to make sure that she and Chris didn’t touch the rain, which means that they must have touched Tyson, which means this can be spread from person to person.

The news changes from one reporter to another, this one with an accent that Nate can’t quite place. He recognises the background, though. The reporter there before was a woman with long red hair, but now there’s a man with close cropped black hair.

“Have you ever noticed that they never go back to the same person twice?” Nate asks, just to fill the room with something other than the sound of the reports. He’s running through Ava’s contacts on autopilot now. Phone. Wait until it plays the message saying that the the number can’t be reached. Switch to one of the others – her work, her apartment, her cell – and repeat. Over and over.

Maybe everything’s down. Yeah, that’s it. Everything’s down and Ava’s fine. She got back to her apartment, so she’s probably fast asleep in her bed with that stupid rabbit plush she’d dragged around as a kid (that she likes to pretend she didn’t take to Star City with her.)

Hank’s still glued to the television, scribbling furiously on pieces of paper, trying to get every single word out of the newscaster’s mouth, as if he’s afraid that he’s going to miss something. He has a bottle of beer on top of the ‘old’ advice, which is really only an hour old.

Nate’s mom coughs quietly as Nate stares at the growing pile of empty beer bottles. They have enough food and water in the house to last for months. That’s one of the big pros of living in a house with a pantry the size of most people’s bedrooms. And a basement stocked with even more food and water.

“The bacteria within the rain is highly contagious and the uninfected are advised to avoid all contact with the infected at all costs. Members of the public should _not_ drink water which has come from the taps.”

“Mom,” Nate says just as she coughs again.

Hank’s head whips around

“Dorothy,” he says.

His mom looks from the mugs of coffee to the tap, then back to the blood on her hand.

“Oh.”

***

Ava sits on the edge of Sara Lance’s bed and wonders what the hell she’s thinking. She tries whispering it a few times, but the rain drumming against the window doesn’t give her an answer.

This isn’t her. This _so_ isn’t her. This is some new Ava, who gets stuck in traffic that she didn’t plan for, who misses the last flight to her parents’ place and misses her planned vacation as a result, who has takeout and then sex with a woman she hardly knows. She didn’t even do this after she broke up with Jenny, and that had involved a bender in Vegas with Nate, and strip clubs. Lots of strip clubs.

“What time is it?” Sara mumbles, startling Ava out of her thoughts. “Laurel said she was going to call me in the morning and I need to be up before eight.”

“It’s nine. You’ve only been asleep for a few hours.”

“Ugh, wake me up at seven.” Sara peers over the edge of the pillow she has her face buried in. “If you’re going to stay until then. You can go if you want to.”

“Do _you_ want me to go?”

Sara smiles. “Only if you want to go. You don’t have to stay if you don’t want to.”

“I like your apartment more than mine,” Ava admits. Sara’s place has a small balcony full of dying plants that remind her of her mom’s collection, and a nice view, unlike Ava’s, which looks at a fire escape that’s a bit too close for comfort. “I need to call my brother and let him know that I got back okay. He’ll never let me hear the end of it if I don’t let him tell me all the awful family gossip before our mom can.”

“I’ll try to make breakfast when I wake up again.” Sara’s already burying her head in the pillow as Ava leaves the bedroom, trying not to laugh at the way that Sara’s hair is sticking up at the back.

In the silence of the living room, with only the electrical fan in the corner making more noise than absolutely necessary, Ava hunts for the remote for the TV as she switches her phone on.

No missed calls and no messages from Nate. Weird. He usually finds out something interesting within an hour of admitting defeat and letting their mom drag him over to the barbeque, and he tells her immediately. She hits the contact for his cell, but nothing happens.

What the hell?

Ava finally finds the remote under one of the cushions and switches on the TV. For a few seconds, she thinks it’s on a twenty-four hour news channel before she takes in the BREAKING NEWS banner along the top and the advice running along the ribbon at the bottom. She flicks through a few channels, but they’re all showing the same thing.

She only stays long enough to hear a handful of sentences before she’s on her feet, yelling, “Sara!” as she runs back into the bedroom.

***

Nate wants to say that they’ll never make it. He wants to tell Hank not to be stupid, not to try doing this, not to do exactly what he’s written in block capitals that Nate _shouldn’t_ do, not to go out in the rain. But he can’t make the words come out. They keep getting stuck in his throat, choking him.

“Please. They can’t do anything, you know they can’t,” he manages eventually after watching Hank unlock the door and help his mom out on to the porch – help her out because she can’t stand up properly on her own now – but Hank shakes his head, holding up his hands when Nate takes a step towards him.

Hank’s hands are blistered and bleeding now, covered in patches where the skin is peeling away, covered in blood. He’s holding the car keys so tightly that his knuckles are white. Nate shrinks back, even though he wants to go to Hank for the first time in years, he wants to hug him and know that everything will be okay, the way that he used to when he was a kid. But he can’t. There’s a loop running in Nate’s head now.

_Touch the rain and you’re dead. Touch contaminated water and you’re dead. Touch someone who’s infected and you’re dead._

His mom. His dad. They’re already dead. Nate knows it. He’s sure they know it as well.

Hank isn’t leaving to get help, Nate realises. He’s leaving so that Nate doesn’t have to watch them both die.

“Listen to me, Nate, this is important,” Hank chokes out, steadying himself against the doorframe – on the outside, so that there’s no risk of Nate touching it. “You need to find Ava. Keep each other safe. Think about everything you do. If it’s too dangerous, don’t do it. Do you understand me, Nate? I need you to survive this. Nate! Promise me that you’ll survive this.”

Nate swallows hard, wringing his hands to keep them busy before he reaches out and does something that’s going to kill him – he’s _thinking_ – and nods. Ava could be dead, he knows, but she can’t be dead. It’s not something that Nate will let himself think about. “I promise. I promise that I’ll stay alive. I promise that I’ll find Ava.”

There’s a moment where Nate thinks that Hank is going to say something else, but instead he turns away before saying, “I love you, Nate.”

And then the door closes behind him.

Nate listens to every noise that he can hear. The car doors closing, closing far too quietly. The engine bursting to life. The crunch of tyres across the gravel.

The sound of Patty or one of the boys just hanging on out there, moaning in pain.

Nate sits against the front door, staring at the drops of blood on the carpet that his mom and dad didn’t quite manage to catch, until the pained noises stop.

It takes an hour.

And then the rain starts again.


	2. Chapter 2

Nate wakes up with a crick in his neck and a dull ache at the base of his spine, where he’s slumped over awkwardly at some point during the night. There are a few beautiful seconds when he’s wondering what the hell he’d done last night before he remembers everything.

The drops of blood on the carpet have dried brown. Nate scrambles away from them, hitting the bottom of the stairs hard enough that he knows he’s going to bruise.

The television is still on in the sitting room, repeating the same warnings from last night. Nothing new. In fact, the warnings have switched to recordings now; Nate can see the screen from where he’s sitting. A screen with some of the vital information while a woman repeats that no one should leave their homes unless absolutely necessary, do not come into contact with contaminated water, do not approach anyone who is showing symptoms.

Take aspirin for the pain. Nate almost laughs at that. Aspirin. What’s that going to do?

“Find Ava,” he mutters, even as the tears well in his eyes. Nate forces himself to get to his feet and wincing when he hears his neck and spine crack as he straightens up. His mom had been trying to get through to Ava before— Before. His dad had asked Nate to find her. So that’s what Nate’s going to do. He’s going to get to Star City and get Ava. She’ll know how to stay safe. Ava’s the kind of person who listens to emergency broadcasts and takes notes. She’s smart like that.

It doesn’t take too long for Nate to find good clothes. He hasn’t lived with his parents for a long time, but he’s always left some clothes in his childhood bedroom, just in case he needed them. Among them are some pairs of slightly too large waterproof pants that he’s sure were originally purchased for some ill-advised research trip that his mom didn’t want him to go on, and he probably didn’t end up going on. Nate puts a pair on and packs the other three into the largest suitcase. He packs a few raincoats, garbage bags, clothes, all of the wipes that he can find in the house (including a few packs that he thinks are supposed to be used to clean kitchen counters.)

“Thank, Nate,” he says an hour later as he stands in the middle of the living room, the TV still droning on. He can get the food right before he leaves. He has a special refrigerated bag for transporting his factor _and_ it can run on batteries and function as a mini fridge, so he should be fine for a while… But still.

Hank’s notes. Nate rummages through them, tossing the old ones in the trash. He reads them over until he can repeat them without even looking at them. There are the basic ones, of course. Don’t come into contact with contaminated water. Don’t touch anyone who is showing symptoms – a horrible little voice in the back of Nate’s head hisses _maybe he should have listened to that one_ – and do not leave shelter unless absolutely necessary.

_Well_, Nate thinks as he moves to the rest of the pile, _I’m already breaking that one._

Only drink bottled water or water you know has not been contaminated. Only wash with bottled water or water free of contamination. An entire page about food that Nate stashes away for later. Cover as much of your body as possible if you must leave shelter. Use double coverage on your hands and feet. Do not approach any animals as they’re likely to have drank contaminated water or—

Nate makes a face when he reads the next part. Great, now he has the image of someone’s dog eating their infected corpse in his head.

“Thanks for that, Dad.”

It takes him almost ten minutes to work his way through the entire pile of warnings and advice. There are a few pages about exactly what is in the rain, but Nate skips them. He can read them later. And then Nate reaches the last page – the last page Hank must have written before— Before. It’s a title that Nate recognises from the library upstairs; a book about cloud types.

**

“Everyone is advised to stay indoors unless absolutely necessary. Hospitals are unable to—” Sara switches off the TV. She’s not sure when it switched to a recorded message instead of reporters, but she doesn’t think it was for a good reason. It was around the same time as the warning that looters would be shot on sight.

It’s quiet outside, other than the sound of a few car alarms going off, and the tapping of the rain on the window. When she looks out the window, Sara can see bodies in the street, littered around the cars abandoned or trapped in the mess. People had been having fun, enjoying the warm afternoon, they’d let it drag into the early evening.

Thankfully they’re too far up to hear anything else. Sara fidgets with the cap on her water bottle. She can’t stop thinking about what would have happened. Her morning routine is that her alarm goes off, she listens to music for fifteen minutes, and then she goes for a shower. She never switches on the TV or checks the news before her shower.

If Ava hadn’t stayed the night, if Ava hadn’t checked the news while she was trying to call her brother…

“I’ve had enough of this,” Ava declares to no one in particular as she stands up. Maybe she’s talking to the rain. Maybe she’s talking to the universe at large; Sara has no idea. “I’m going to find my family.”

It takes Sara until Ava’s left the apartment and gone into her own for Sara to really register the words. She jumps to her feet and runs after her, barely even taking in Ava’s apartment – smaller than Sara’s own, no balcony, but much neater.

“You can’t be serious!”

But it looks like Ava is serious. She throws an armful of clothing into a suitcase, reaching around Sara to grab a bag that looks like it’s full of face wipes and baby wipes, which she attempts to stuff in the top of the suitcase. Sara’s torn between horror and admiration. On one hand, it’s amazing to see Ava jump from frantic shouting about the news reports to packing even more frantically. On the other, she’s going to _die_.

“Ava, come on, stop for a minute,” Sara says as she grabs Ava’s hands to keep her from picking up anything else or zipping up the suitcase. “You saw those reports. We can’t leave.”

“_We_ can’t, but I can.”

“If the rainwater touches you, you’ll die.”

Ava pulls her hands away. “My family is in Washington. If I can’t contact them, then they can’t contact me. They could think I’m dead.”

“Ava.” Sara swallows hard. “They could _be_ dead.”

“No.” Ava shakes her head. “You don’t know my family. My mom and dad are prepared for anything. They have enough in the house to last them for months. They’ll be holed up in the house with Nate, waiting for news. They’ll probably have the entire family there.”

“Unless they were outside.”

“They were inside.” Ava steps around Sara so that she can sit on the edge of the bed and pull on waterproof pants over her jeans. She’s halfway through forcing one foot into rubber boots when she adds, “I thought you had a sister. Don’t you want to know if she’s okay?”

“Laurel. She lives across town.” Sara’s been trying not to think about Laurel, because every single time she does, she’s nowhere near as confident about her sister’s survival as Ava is about her family’s. “Our dad died a few years ago, and I don’t even know where our mom is. Laurel was supposed to be finishing early yesterday.”

And when Laurel finishes early, she likes to sit on the little balcony at her apartment, and drink a disgusting mixture of pineapple juice and lemonade. The glass is always half full of ice. Sara’s never understood the appeal; it tastes awful to her.

If she was outside when the rain started… Sara shakes her head. There’s no point in speculating. As dangerous as Ava’s plan is, there’s no way that Sara’s going to be able to talk her out of it. And, although Sara’s expecting to find something terrible, she has to look.

“I think we should go,” Sara says carefully, “but not today.” As soon as Ava’s head snaps up, she adds, “Do you know how long it will take you to get to Washington? You’ll need food and water. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t have enough in my apartment to keep me alive on a cross-country trip. I don’t even have bottled water.”

Ava stops what she’s doing and nods. “I have some, but not enough to get us all the way to Washington. We’ll need gas. Food that we can eat cold or at least a way to heat it. Nothing perishable.”

“And do you see a grocery store around here?” Sara asks, gesturing around the bedroom, at the window where the rain is still drumming against the glass, still threatening them.

“Do you hear any neighbours around?”

A chill runs down Sara’s spine. No. She hasn’t heard anyone. Which is strange, because they haven’t exactly been quiet since the news broke. Sara’s shouted at the TV multiple times, but the usual background noise of their neighbours complaining or banging on the walls has been absent. There’s not even any sign of anyone lurking in the hallway, trying to hear their argument.

“Most of the other apartments have balconies,” Ava continues, “and those balconies don’t have any shelter on them.”

Sara shakes her head, but she’s already thinking the same thing. All those people she’d seen sitting out on their balconies when she’d come home. Mrs Higgins who lives at the other end of the hall. Clara, whose apartment didn’t have a balcony, but who always sits out on the fire escape when it’s hot out. The family on the top floor who always lets their kids play on the balcony, and who would have probably never listened to the instruction to not touch people who are infected.

**

Ava knocks gently on the door to Mrs Higgins’ apartment. She doesn’t really want to do this, but she has to know if she’s right. It’s one of the few times that Ava doesn’t want to be right.

“Should we?” Sara asks, gesturing towards the door.

When Ava doesn’t move, Sara tries the handle. The door opens easily. Sara lets out a quiet little sigh of defeat, as if she knows exactly what’s on the other side of the door.

They let themselves in slowly, inching the door open until it’s open just enough for them to slip through the gap. There’s no sense in disturbing anything unnecessarily, after all. And, besides, maybe they’re just about to scare the living daylights out of a sweet old lady.

Mrs Higgins is lying on the couch, just a few feet away from the open door to the balcony. Her face is unrecognisable, little more than a pulpy red mess, blood soaking into the fabric behind her head. Her cat, Fluffy, is curled up beside her, his fur stained with his owner’s blood.

Sara gags as she covers Mrs Higgins with the throw from the armchair, careful not to touch her. “She must have been outside when it started to rain.”

“She was nice,” Ava says numbly, staring at the rain that’s soaking into the carpet beside the door.

She’d offered to call her grandchildren to help Ava move in if she needed the help. Her grandson, she’d proudly informed Ava, was at Harvard and was going to visit her in August. Ava isn’t sure if she hopes that the rain has claimed him as well, or if she wants him to know what happened to his grandmother. His cards are displayed around the television. Ava can’t remember what Mrs Higgins said that they said, but she remembers being told that one arrived every month without fail, and had ever since Mrs Higgins’ husband had died two years ago.

The creak of hinges startles Ava out of her thoughts, and she turns to find Sara going through the little kitchen.

“What?” Sara asks, gesturing to the small pile of food that she’s already gathered. “It’s not as if she’s going to eat it. You’re the one who said that we need to get everything we can before we can leave. Checking the other apartments was your idea.”

Yes, it was. But coming up with an idea and executing it are very different things. And looking at poor Mrs Higgins, dead on her couch, Ava wonders if she even wants to look for her family. What if Sara’s right, what if she’s going to get to her parents’ house in Washington and her entire family is dead in the yard?

“Hey.” Sara touches her arm gently. “If it helps, I think she would have wanted us to have a chance at surviving. She’d want us to find Laurel and your family, wouldn’t she? She always made extra food for me when Laurel was working on the holidays.”

Ava nods. But she still can’t bring herself to help Sara loot the kitchen and bag everything up to make it easier to carry.

“I think this is everything,” Sara says eventually. She’s got a lot of tinned soup and veg in the bags, some big bottles soda and cartons of fruit juice, and a twelve-pack of water. “It’s not the best diet in the world, but I think it should get us to your parents’ place?”

_That_ startles Ava out of her thoughts enough to make her stare at Sara. “Us?” She’s been assuming that Sara will see how Laurel is, and then either stay with her or return to her apartment. The idea of Sara going with her to Washington hasn’t even crossed her mind.

Sara shrugs. “What, you thought I was going to let you go all the way across the country on your own? No way. You heard the reports, the stuff about looters. And I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty good in a fight.”

Ava nods. That’s good. She’s no pushover in a fight herself, but another pair of hands is always good. Although… Does this mean they’re a couple? You don’t just go on a cross-country trip with a friend when a single drop of rain touching you could do kill you, do you? And it’s not as if Sara doesn’t have options. Her apartment is safe enough. If it isn’t, she can always stay in Ava’s, where there’s no balcony.

She doesn’t get a chance to ask Sara if this means that they’re now a _thing_ rather than a one night stand, because Fluffy lets out a plaintive meow from behind them.

They both turn to stare at the cat, who’s now standing on the edge of the couch.

“Fuck. What do you think will happen if he touches us?”

Fluffy doesn’t move. He just stares at them before he lets out another meow.

“I don’t know,” Ava says as she inches along the wall to do the only thing she can think of. She grabs the bag of dried cat food. Fluffy’s gaze immediately snaps to her—or rather, to the bag. “Are you hungry, kitty?”

Ava rips open the bag of dried cat food and empties it on to the kitchen floor. It’s not much, but she’s sure that the cat can survive for a while on that and some of the rainwater that’s collected, and it’s better than leaving Fluffy with Mrs Higgins as his only food source. She stays standing there, watching Fluffy eat as Sara gathers the bags of food, water, and juice and makes a quick escape from the apartment.

“I’m sorry,” Ava says, unsure of whether she’s apologising to the cat, to his now-deceased owner, or just the world in general.

They still have more apartments to check.

**

The first thing Nate does is try to look up the route on Google Maps, connected to the wi-fi and with his data switched on. Nothing. The page is just stuck in loading.

“Oh, that’s bad,” he mutters to himself as he switches to some of the paper maps from Hank’s study. It doesn’t take him too long to mark out the routes. Thankfully, no one lives in anywhere that you can’t get to using an interstate highway.

Between working on the map and listing stops, as he sips from a bottle of water, Nate tries everyone’s numbers. Ava’s apartment. Ava’s cell. Ava’s work. Wally’s cell. Ray’s cell. He goes through every single relative, even the ones he doesn’t like. He even tries his parents’ cell phones, just in case they made it to the hospital and are holed up there, waiting for the all clear. Nothing. It’s the same silence after he presses the call button every time.

By the time Nate’s finished his list of places to go on the way to Ava’s apartment in Star City, his phone has finally given up and died. To its credit, it had lasted longer than Nate had expected; he’s been meaning to upgrade for months.

The first stop, other than the pharmacy closest to the house, is the pharmacy on the outskirts of Central City. They usually have good supplies of his medication. Then he can check Wally’s apartment and see if he survived, or if he’s there. Nate’s not sure where Wally’s dad and step-mother are living now, so unless he finds an address at Wally’s place, that’s where that attempt will end. He can’t see if he can find Nora and Ray because they’re supposed to be on vacation somewhere in Canada. Amaya, thankfully, is back in Zambesi. There hadn’t been any word on whether anywhere else had been affected by the bacteria earlier. Nate’s choosing to pretend that it’s just the US. Everywhere else is fine. Everywhere else has to fine, because if most of the world is like this – if most of the broadcasts have died, if there’s no sign of anyone around – then the world is fucked on a scale that can’t even comprehend.

Nate mulls over the possibilities as he moves everything he thinks he should be able to fit in the minivan from the pantry and the basement into the hallway, near the back door. He doesn’t want to go near the front door. Not only is there still blood on the carpet from his mom or dad, but outside…

He doesn’t want to have to step over Patty and the kids’ bodies to get out of the house. It feels disrespectful. They already died in such a horrifying way.

After Nate makes sure that everything he needs is in the hallway, he checks the house once more and packs his medication last, checking and double checking that the refrigerated bag is cold. He has enough to last for almost three months, but that doesn’t stop Nate from being antsy about it. What if something happens and he loses some of it? What if it gets contaminated? He needs to pick up more?

“Okay,” Nate says as he stands by the door after he’s put on the rest of the waterproof clothing and other supplies that he’s found – a plasticky waterproof jacket with a hood, heavy duty boots which he then covers with some of the many garbage bags, rubber gloves, and a face mask and ski goggles. “Just try it.”

The door unlocks easily and swings open with the same creak that Nate’s heard hundreds of thousands of times – _throwing the door open as he runs up the path, yelling as dramatically as he can as Ava shoots him with the water pistol, shrieking in delight, their parents calling to them both to calm down_ – and Nate steps outside.

It isn’t raining anymore. In fact, other than puddles, the rain has almost completely dried up. But it’s left behind an eerie silence. Not even the birds are making a sound, almost as if they know that something awful has happened.

And the cloying heat is back. He can feel the sweat running down his back by the time he gets around the front of the house. The drive at the front of the house is a mess – gravel scattered all over the paving slabs from his parents’ quick exit – but it’s the porch that makes Nate stop, even though the heat is already making Nate feel sick. Patty and the boys are leaning against the wall beside the door. If not for the blood on their hands and faces, Nate could almost fool himself into think they’re asleep.

He’s not sure how long he stands there staring at the bodies before he forces himself to go down to the drive and unlock the minivan. It’s almost completely dry, thanks to being parked at the very side, under a little shelter that Nate vividly remembers his dad building when he was fourteen. Or, more accurately, he remembers Ava climbing it at ten and breaking her arm.

It takes Nate almost two hours and an entire bottle of water to get everything moved from the house to the back of the minivan. He suddenly regrets joking about his parents buying a minivan so long after he and Ava had grown up and left home. It turns out that it might just save his life, because there’s no other car for him to use.

Nate hides the nearly thirty big bottles of water in the back of the minivan. He’s not sure why, but something tells him that travelling with water in full view is a bad idea. There were warnings about looters on the broadcasts before they switched to the recorded ones. Lots of stuff about looters being shot on sight. Well, it Nate doesn’t loot a pharmacy and make sure he has enough medication, his outlook in the future isn’t great _without_ being shot.

Before he leaves, Nate goes back to the shed, back to the area behind it that doubles – _doubled_ – as a greenhouse for his mom, and grabs all of the flowers he can carry.

He leaves them on the front porch, scattered in front of the bodies.

“I’m sorry,” he says, unsure if he’s apologising to Patty and Tyson and Chris, for them being infected or for not opening the door to them. Or maybe he’s apologising to his mom and dad, wherever they’ve ended up.

Nate doesn’t bother to go back and lock the door.


	3. Chapter 3

It takes so long to fill the bathtub that, one of the few times he leaves his room, Behrad yells at her to give up and just save the water. But Zari isn’t put off. She heats the water pan by pan, carrying them back and forth from the bathroom (glad that there are a lot in this house, because it means she doesn’t have to go upstairs and deal with Behrad judging her) until the bath is almost half full.

The water’s half cold by the time she gets in, but Zari’s not going to complain. She washes herself slowly, trying to concentrate on the smell of tangerines that fills the bathroom instead of her knowledge of what’s outside. It doesn’t work.

Outside, the rain is still coming down. Every so often she sees the shadow of a bird passing across the closed blinds.

Behrad had said that he saw birds at the bodies outside. Zari tries not to think about it. She scrubs at her skin until it starts to hurt and then she moves on to washing her hair.

The showerhead drip-drip-drips into the plastic bag that she’s encased it in. It’s sitting in the sink, completely harmless. There’s no chance of the water touching her. The rain drums steadily on the window. There’s no chance of that getting in either.

“They should have moved away from Seattle,” Zari says to the shadows as she picks up a pair of scissors. Her parents had refused. They’d wanted to stay closer to friends. Friends who are now dead outside with them. “I told them to move.”

There’s no reply from the rain, but Zari’s not really expecting one.

She pulls her hair over her shoulder and starts to cut.

***

Nate’s never seeing the city so empty. Sure, where his parents live isn’t exactly a hive of activity most of the time because it’s right on the edge of the city, but there’s usually at least one car driving down a nearby road.

There’s no one at the first pharmacy that Nate checks, but unlike most of the streets, there are signs that there are other people alive. The windows have been smashed in and most things of value have been taken. Thankfully, Nate thinks as he finds that the fridge is still switched on and full, and that there are still shelves of antibiotics, the people who broke in were either trying to listen to the reports or were looking for a fix.

Sure enough, there’s a nice supply of his medication, and enough antibiotics that Nate doesn’t think he’ll have to worry about a bacterial infection anytime soon.

Well, _most_ bacterial infections.

His second stop is Central City, and it’s never taken Nate less time to get there, even when he drove there in the middle of the night.

The only vehicles he sees on the roads between DC and Central City are crashed at the side of the road. Most of them have their doors open, recognisable forms lying beside the abandoned cards, but there are a few where Nate can only see the blood smeared on the insides of the windows. As if whoever is in there didn’t try to get out until it was too late. Nate drives past them all. Sure, he’s been awake for almost twenty hours at this point, but there’s no way in hell that he’s going to stop outside, even if he is in the minivan.

Wally’s place is on the outskirts of Central City, in the kind of place that Nate thinks was once made up of warehouses but now has a fancy district name. There are bodies in the streets, rotting in the summer heat, but no sign of anyone living being in the area. He leaves the minivan in the parking garage on the ground floor of the building and, encased in his waterproof layers, makes his way up to Wally’s loft and lets himself in with the secret spare key (hidden in front of the emergency exit lighting; it’s hot to touch when Nate picks it up.)

The apartment is empty. There’s no sign of blood, though, and when Nate switches the TV on, it’s still set up for his PS4. Wally hasn’t been around here since the rain really started. His closet is a mess, too. Clothes are scattered across the floor and the bedroom, and one of the suitcases from his bright yellow set is missing.

“Well, at least it looks like you got out alive,” Nate says.

Unlike most places Nate’s seen, the power’s out in the building, other than the emergency lighting, maybe it’s even out in the entire neighbourhood. He’s not sure how long it’s been like this, but the rest of the apartment building is almost completely silent. There are no signs of life in the entire place.

He tries every door on every floor anyway, calling, “Hello?” loud enough that it echoes down the empty hallways.

There’s no reply. One or two doors open when he tries the handle, but Nate doesn’t enter. He remembers what Patty and the boys looked like. He doesn’t want to see what anyone else looks like.

When Nate finally gives up, he goes back downstairs and curls up in the back of the minivan.

**

They need to wait until it looks like it’s going to be dry for a while. Ava watches the clouds, trying to remember everything she read in that book from her parents’ library, while Sara occasionally tries every electronic device in the apartment. There’s not really any point. There’s no signal. The power, based on the slowly disappearing lights from the few other buildings around them where Ava’s even seen them, won’t last for much longer. Sara’s taking advantage of it, listening a playlist that’s disturbing similar to the one that Ava usually forces Nate to stop playing.

“Let me get this straight: we need to go towards the looting,” Ava says the third time she hears gunshots. Her car is in a garage two blocks away. It wouldn’t be a problem, but she knows that it floods when it rains. There’s no way she’s going anywhere with more water than necessary.

A single drop touching your skin is enough to kill you. Ava wishes that she caught the explanation of why it kills you. The horrifying way it leaves its victims, the way that it looks like all of the blood rushed to the surface of their bodies, Ava doesn’t know how to explain that. She’s never been a scientist and the reports had been vague at best.

“My car won’t make it cross-country. Laurel keeps her car in a private garage under her apartment,” Sara explains for the third time. “I know the code to get in, I know where the manual override for the garage is, and I know where Laurel keeps the keys. All we have to do is go and get Laurel. Hey, do you think Laurel and Nate will get along? Wouldn’t it be a nightmare if we go all the way across the country, and then we’re trapped in the house at the end of it, with the two of them hating each other?”

Ava can think of stranger things. Like sleeping with your neighbour and somehow ending up with them as your only company when the world is going to hell. It’s a bad time to have the girlfriend talk. It’s a bad time to _want_ the girlfriend talk. Who knows how many people are dead, and they have more important things to think about. But if someone agrees to travel cross-country with you to get to your family, then they’re probably not planning on just being friends. Which is nice, Ava thinks as she watches Sara complete her latest check of all the phones and the laptops. It’s more than you expect from someone who hardly knows you.

“Thank you.”

Sara looks up. “Huh?”

“For agreeing to come with me to look for my brother and my parents. And for stopping me from making a big mistake yesterday. And for planning to get your sister’s car for us. Everything. You barely know me, and you have helped me with so much already.”

“You helped me, too. Not just by telling me I could get to Laurel,” Sara clarifies when Ava frowns, “but because if you hadn’t switched on the TV, if you hadn’t been here… I would have died.”

“You don’t know that.”

“My alarm goes off twice. It plays one of ten songs that I absolutely hate. I get up and I go for a shower.” She shrugs. “If you hadn’t stayed the night, I would have gone for a shower and I would have died there without even knowing what was going on. So, thank you for saving my life.”

Unsure what to say, Ava can only nod before Sara busies herself with checking the contents of the bags, humming along to the music.

Ava writes while she’s waiting for the right time to leave. Notes to her parents and brother, just in case she doesn’t make it to them. They’ll probably never see them – her mom and dad are too sensible to try to get from Washington DC to Star City, and Nate’s probably too afraid to try – but it makes her feel better.

She’s only just finished the final one – _and Nate, don’t worry if you can’t find me, I’m on my way to Mom and Dad’s. I’ll meet you in Mom’s ‘greenhouse’ _– when the lights flicker and die.

For one of the first times since this all started, Sara looks afraid when she flicks on a torch, illuminating her face. “So tonight, right?”

Ava listens for the rain. Silence. What she can see of the sky is clear with no clouds visible on the horizon.

“Tonight.”

**

Nate wakes up early and eats a sandwich with some of the cheese from Wally’s still-cool fridge. It’s best to leave the food that will last long as long as possible. He washes in the middle of the bathroom, using a mixture of wet wipes and bottled water. It’s not the nicest solution, but it’s better than not washing. He checks and repacks his backpack: water, some medication and equipment in case he has to settle down somewhere for a couple of days and needs to do an infusion, a large bottle of water (from his parents’ place) and some boxes of crackers.

He leaves Wally’s apartment as soon as the sun is up, leaving a note on the table – _hey, Wally, I came by and you weren’t here, I’m heading to Ava’s place in Star _City with Ava’s address written at the end, just in case he comes back. There’s still no one around.

Central City, Nate recalls as he drives, was hotter than hell on the day that the rain started. That aligns with the sheer number of bodies he can see beside the roadside and in yards.

It’s even worse when he’s working his way around the city and gets to Iron Heights. Nate’s always thought that its place outside the city but on a road was a good idea. But looking at the bodies strewn around the road, he’s not so sure. Some of them are guards, but others are obviously inmates, either freed or just having ran out with the others. Nate parks the minivan just inside the gates and tugs them closed. He’s glad that he doesn’t have to move any bodies to do so.

Prisons aren’t great places for a lot of things. But one thing they _are_ decent for is medical equipment. Nate knows for a fact that the prison has—_had_ a haemophiliac prisoner. He doubts there will be a decent supply of any of the medications that keep his factor up, but needles and everything else? Jackpot.

And, besides, everyone’s dead, so it’s not as if anything interesting is going to happen.

**

Behrad drums his fingers against the stupid glass table that he’s never liked. It’s still raining. Zari’s upstairs doing whatever the fuck she does when she’s not filming, probably burning their precious candles down to nothing for _atmosphere_ or whatever stupid thing she’s going for now.

He’s running out of weed. That alone wouldn’t suck, but running out of weed when the backyard is full of the rotting bodies of almost everyone you love? Yeah, that sucks.

“Hey.” Zari’s standing in the doorway, her hair still soaking wet – more of their precious water supply – but she’s chopped it off at her shoulders now. Most of the golden blonde part, the bit she used to call _her iconic look_ is gone now.

“Hey,” Behrad echoes as Zari makes her way across the room to sit at the other end of couch.

If the fire was on, if the television was on, it would be a nice sight. Instead It’s, _here’s your sister not being annoying for the first time in years to your right, and if you look out the window to your left, you can see your parents’ bodies halfway up the path_.

“Do you think we’re going to die here?”

They’ve got food. They’ve got water. But it hasn’t stopped raining and they’re going to have to leave eventually, if only because Behrad knows from his training that it’s not a good idea to stick around decomposing bodies.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly.

**

It’s blistering hot inside Iron Heights. Nate has to stop after a few minutes to strip off some of the waterproofs, already beginning to feel sick from the wall of heat surrounding him. It’s so hot inside that it’s hard to breathe. This, he thinks, must have been one of the first places to lose power. Or most of it, he amends as he notices the lights on a panel still glowing.

He carefully avoids the showers, where he can hear water running. There’s a body just inside the door, soaking wet, but blood free. Well. Mainly. There’s no sign that the rain or contaminated water got to him. His hair is matted with blood, as if someone bashed the back of his head in before leaving him.

The floor plan is simple enough. Medical is at the top of the building, up flights of metal stairs with handrails that are warm to the touch. In the middle of the bulk of the cells, Nate can’t even look at anything other than the steps beneath his feet. The smell of bodies rotting in the summer heat is almost overpowering.

There’s one poor bastard that Nate has to step over. His hands are cuffed to a chain around his waist. Probably being moved when the rain started, probably left for dead. His hands and arms are the worst, as if someone grabbed at him and infected him. His face is remarkably clear. The rain didn’t kill him, though. Nate doesn’t have to be a medical expert to see that his neck is clearly broken.

It feels like it takes an hour to get to the top of the stairs. Maybe it does. Between the heat and trying not to breathe too deeply, Nate’s not even sure how long time has passed. The closest thing to a celebration that he gets is a quick drink of water before he keeps going. ‘Safe’ or not, Iron Heights is an enclosed space that he doesn’t know. Common sense says that no matter how safe it seems to be, Nate isn’t sticking around.

Nothing’s locked, of course. Nate’s not sure if it was panic or simply carelessness that led to even the keys to the room that houses all of the medication and medical equipment just being left on the table in the examination room. Thankfully, it’s another place that’s free of bodies.

**

“Is it just me or is this place creepier at night?” Sara asks as she lets the door close behind them. When Ava doesn’t answer, she puts on a high-pitched voice and says, “Of course not, Sara, it’s just your imagination, everything is perfectly fine.”

At least there are no gunshots now. That’s a positive. Kind of like there not being a man-eating bear in your apartment, where the positive is the lack of an extreme negative, but Sara will take no rain and no gunshots. Sara looks up at the sky. Still dark. Still kind of creepy. But there are still no clouds so, you know, bright side. Or dull, dark, but not full of deadly rain side.

In fact, as they make their way down the deserted streets, stepping over bodies and walking around abandoned cars, it’s like there’s no one else in the entire city. There’s no power in most of the buildings beyond the EMERGENCY EXIT signs that Sara can see through some windows.

It’s not until over two hours later, when they’re almost at Laurel’s apartment complex, until they’re right in front of a massive grocery store with broken windows and a truck halfway through its entrance, that they even see anyone else.

The man tears past them with a shopping card, almost hitting Ava, and then careening into an abandoned car. The alarm begins blaring immediately.

And all hell breaks loose.

The first thing that hits Sara as people begin pouring out of the grocery store is _people must have been hiding out in there_. The second is that _someone is fucking shooting from inside the store_. She almost hits the ground before she freezes, mid-crouch, suddenly very aware of the water all around her. The waterproof outfits that Ava put together are good, but Sara can’t bring herself to touch it directly.

“Sara!” Ava grabs her and all but drags her back towards one of the abandoned cars. Sara doesn’t even have a chance to ask her what’s going on, to ask why the hell Ava isn’t running, before Ava’s throwing their supplies into the front. “Look up!”

Sara does. And as soon as she does, she realises that she can’t remember the last time she did.

Clouds have gathered above them.

_Stupid. So fucking stupid._

Sara barely has time to swear before Ava’s shoving her into the backseat of the car and scrambling in beside her.

She’s barely slammed the car door closed when the rain starts.

The only good thing is that the shooting stops almost immediately.

But then the screaming starts.

**

Nate’s not sure why he bothers going looking around Iron Heights. Maybe it’s boredom. Maybe it’s that he’s getting desperate for some sign, any sign at all, that he’s not completely alone around here. He thinks about what he’s going to have to tell Ava later.

_So, yeah, your scaredy cat big brother went walking around an abandoned prison full of dead bodies, how is _that_ for someone scared of their own shadow?_

Not too bad, even if this is the dumbest thing Nate’s ever done.

There are some radios that Nate manages to fit in his backpack, glad that he brought the larger of the two, and a nice number of batteries. He’s got some of the right type in the minivan but, well, it never hurts to have more.

It’s just by chance that he catches sight of the screens on the other side of the room. Live feeds of one of the areas of the prison, he thinks as he checks the date and time. Solitary, maybe. Narrow, numbered little cells that make Nate feel claustrophobic looking at them. Full of bodies, mainly lying beside the sinks and toilets. A few lying on the beds.

But that’s not the thing that makes Nate stop dead and drop a handful of batteries.

No. The thing that makes him stop is the sight of movement in cell three.

There’s someone alive in there.


End file.
